[EPI] Western Horror

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The inky black of the mountain tunnel embraced you palpably. All around you people's voices raised loudly to be heard over the echo of the steam engine and the rails. The squeal of the train's brakes unexpectedly jarred everyone in the passenger cars. For a moment all was still and quiet before panicked and nervous voices started up in the dark.

Reuben Hicks was in the next car forward from you, last you saw. He didn't know that a Pinkerton man was so hot on his heels. At least, not that he let on.

[Pool/5]I feel the darkness, the distractions, the panic of the passenger car with relief. The scars on my face make me feel self-conscious. Conspicuous. Here, now, people are not paying attention to me. My heart rate smooths. I like the stress. It's why the Pinkerton's hire me. I take the difficult cases and I believe Reuben Hicks is an extremely difficult case. Now that he is deep underground I know I need to make my move. I see now his strategy of getting to The Depths. Silly me, thinking he was heading to the Saltien Gold mines. But no, it is here, here in this train tunnel. He must be the one that caused this train to stop.

I intend to put my hand on my gun and work my way up to Hicks and put that barrel to the back of his head. Give him one chance to return what he stole. I need to do it quick now, the smoke of that engine will not give us too much time to breathe in this tunnel.

People are standing in the aisles. Everywhere you can see the sputter of matches flaring to life before rapidly fading back to black. Somewhere in the car ahead a woman is screaming hysterically. Already you can smell the acrid stench of coal smoke.

With your iron in hand, you move briskly down the length of the train car. The door to your carriage is open, though the connecting door to Hicks is not. You can hear the muted sound of flesh against glass from within. The surrounding dark of the tunnel leers in on you and you feel that little matchbook in your pocket figuratively burning a hole.

The dark has made this more difficult than I thought, but I dread pulling my own match, creating my own light, bringing attention to myself. And the chaos in his car, he would want to get out of that as soon as possible. God, would that woman stop screaming.

No, I will now jump down and crouch under the cars listening for the crunch of boot on gravel. I'm make my move in ambush -- no longer directly.

The heat from the train's sudden stop has still not dissipated and the undercarriage of the train is warm. Combined with the scent of sulfur, you feel as though you are crouched at the door to hell. You know that Hicks never strayed far from your sight, which leaves the source of the trains sudden stoppage a mystery.

Finally you hear the door to the train car kick open, the splintering of wood at the impact and the abrupt addition of sound from the trains occupants. There is sobbing and wailing from within and a definite wet sound. Thoughts of a slaughterhouse creep at the corner of your mind. The impact of heavy boots in the gravel mere feet away startles you back to the present.

Sweat boils out under my hat, soaking the rim, making it cling to my scalp. My nose smarts with the smell of sulfur and smoke. My eyes water. This place, a man made passage through stone that should not have been transversed. It is an unholy place, I know it now. There must be other . . . things here.

It feels like ages,then I hear the wood break. The laments of the passengers assault my senses. I remember a photo the Pinkerton's gave me. A saloon thought visited by Hicks. Those poor dead men. Their eyes cast in unresponsive horror in their death glare to the camera. Here, now, another slaughterhouse. Nausea.

The crunch of the boots. My finger gives a twitch, but I control it. I need to focus. I am a man of action, not honor. I feel no qualms now. Fair fights are for suckers. He may be some sort of wicked sorcerer, but I have yet to see a man immune to bullets.

I intend to aim my pistol and shoot from the hidden dark and blow out the kneecaps of the monster Rueben Hicks.

Light flickers from matches. In the car behind you the conductor has found a lamp and lit it, casting spotty light through the windows, shadows flit on the walls. You can make out the shape of Hicks outlined against the tunnel walls, his hulking frame easily recognizable. There is something more - an amorphous shape over his shoulder. One of the passenger?

As he stands there you can hear the man talk in his uneducated and guttural voice. "I make holes..." As he speaks you note his shadow cast on the wall deepens, as though cast down a long tunnel that was not there before.

My mind recoils at the site of such madness. What is this blasphemy? My estranged wife tried to convince me that such things could happen, that she had seen such things. But I refused to believe her. And now, here I am, witness to this horror. A distortion of reality through some dark art. It all starts to make some gut-churning sense. And who is that on his shoulder? What vile purpose would he need to kidnap someone? No. I will not allow this. I'm the best bounty-hunter this side of the Missouri. Whatever evils Hicks has at his command, he can't stop a bullet.

Your shot booms like a thunderclap in the dark confines of the railway tunnel. Reuben bellows in pain and rage like an angry animal as his leg clips out from under him and he falls to the gravel earth in a heap, the body falling along side him. The shadows on the wall dilate and distort almost instantly. The light from the lone lantern seems drawn towards the inky void, swallowed up.

Ah, victory. He'll never walk normal again and I don't feel bad for it. Not for one moment. I can't suppress my smile. But then I see the light, the light actually moves like eddies of water towards a drain. A void to where? To oblivion? Had he drawn this world and attached it to the next? I want to smell for brimestone. I want to listen for the howls of the damned. But I don't. No, I am on the job. Rueben Hicks stole from a client, and I must get what does not belong to him. I will quell my fears, get that thing and then get out of this miserable pit.

I intend to march out from my cover of darkness and say something like, "Fool, Hicks-- thinking you could evade a Pinkerton bounty?" and then kick him and search for the item he took while pointing my gun in his face.

We might be in a weak-hit feedback loop problem. Maybe rules should have no second dice roll after weak-hit and no option for Player to add new content (beliefs). MC gives more information and Player has option to reveal emotions and change intent, then MC gives result.

You spout your lines in classical form, sneering at your victory. The big man groans loudly when you boot him in the side, rolling over and doubling in half. You must have nicked an artery, the ground is wet around him.

Leaning down to loot him, you catch his snarling words. "Why hullo, Pinky ... You so rough ..." His eyes glint reflectively in the lantern light. His breath is fetid and smells of rotting meat.

Meat. Hadn't Hicks been accused of cannibalism among other things? Your memory was too slow. Though you catch hold of the book spine beneath his coats, you are too slow and Reuben darts forward like a viper, flashing snaggled teeth and taking a hefty bite from your face.

The teeth are so sharp. As if they required no actual strength of the jaw and bite before they have bit in and ripped a good portion of my face off. I scream. It hurts. The old scar tissue had just finally healed to about as good as it was going to get. But it was very sensitive. Tears well in my eyes from the pain. That one witness at the saloon, they had ranted about bite marks on the bodies. And I didn't take it serious. Maybe I just didn't want to look at that gruesome scene any more than I had to.

A second thunderclap rings through the tunnels. The sound raises screams from the nearby traincar. Hicks makes no sound, his body hitting the earth like a rag doll where he lays deathly still. For a moment the only sound is the subtle sucking noise of the dilating wall.

The dusty old book hangs from your hand, heavy and splattered with gore from your gaping facial wound.

The startled screams from the train are answered by an otherworldy wail from the far end of the train. Hicks was not alone.

The gush of blood from my face warms the hand clamped to it. My face feels disturbingly numb, but I know that will fade soon. I can only feel disbelief about the dilating wall. My hopes it would close when I ended Hicks now dashed.

This train ride has turned into a monstrous tragedy. This train isn't going anywhere soon. By my senses its just another mile or so to the other side of this tunnel. No way I go toward that wail. I have not duty to these poor souls on this train.

I intend to hightail it out of here. Just follow the train tracks forward through the gloom, away from the smoke and death and horrors. To stay here is death.

You make tracks and move quickly down the tunnel. Passengers from some of the cars have spilled out into the open and you force your way among them. Chaos seems to reign everywhere. People are panicking and in each train car you see scenes of slaughter and blood shed, something monstrous that you seem just slow enough to have missed.

The tunnel maw yawns in front of you, blinding light from outside a mere hundred feet from the engine. Tempted as you were to look for the source of the stoppage, your desire to escape the gloom is greater. In the safety of daylight once more you and a few passengers all look back with a start at the squealing sound of metal on metal - the engine and its attached cars slowly inching their way backward, deeper into the abyss...

Are those howls of pain and despair or is that just metal crunching upon metal, or the maddening mixture of both? I do not know. But it is something I will never forget. I run until my chest burns, the soot and smoke makes my eyes blurry with tears my face ugly with snot and blood. And I don't care. I'm just so happy to be out under the open sky. The wonderful light of the sun. I turn to see the train as though devoured by some giant maw.

I observe the strange gathering of people that stand with me. What an eclectic bunch. I don't want to dally. I'm not completely sure where I am. I know there are scattered mining towns through here. I find the nearest river or even creek, follow it down from this mountain I'm sure to find some mining camp of some sort. I gaze at the sun, seems between 2pm and 3pm.

I intend to abandon any survivors and follow what water streams I can find to civilization.